All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

How Siberia’s methane craters affect the whole planet | Green Prophet

“Gas pressure increased until it was high enough to push away the overlaying layers in a powerful injection, forming the crater,” “href=”http://www.nature.com/news/mysterious-siberian-crater-attributed-to-methane-1.15649″>explained geochemist Hans-Wolfgang Hubberten of Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute.

The other two craters have diameters of 45 feet and 13 feet. And while the pockmarked peninsula poses a particular risk to local people, especially considering that industrial plants have been erected on the frozen land that is now melting away, the global community will be affected as well.

Despite the danger of investigating this “spooky” unstable landmass, archaeologist Andrei Plekhanov from the Scientific Center of Arctic Studies in Salekhard, Russia reported in a recent Nature article that the air at the bottom of the crater consists of up to 9.6 percent methane – compared to the standard 0.000179 percent.

Related: Giant plumes of gurgling methane could fast-track planetary warming

This is worrisome because methane is far more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to trapping greenhouse gases in our atmosphere – the one atmosphere that everyone on planet Earth shares.

“Pound for pound, the comparative impact of [methane gas] on climate change is over 20 times greater than [carbon dioxide] over a 100-year period,” the Environmental Protection Agency reported.

NIMBYism refers to the idea that as long as something bad (pollution, mining, social injustice) is taking place anywhere other than my back yard, it’s not my problem. But the thawing permafrost and subsequent release of methane bombs is everyone’s problem.

via How Siberia’s methane craters affect the whole planet | Green Prophet.

Spanish priest with Ebola virus flown home for treatment | News | DW.DE | 07.08.2014

A Spanish military Airbus carrying Father Miguel Pajares landed at Madrid’s Torrejon air base shortly at 8:15 a.m. local time (0615 GMT) on Thursday. The A310 had been equipped with plastic isolation tents.

The 75-year-old Roman Catholic priest was one of three people who had tested positive for Ebola at the San Jose hospital in the Liberian capital Monrovia earlier this week. Juliana Bohi, a nun from Equatorial Guinea, who holds Spanish citizenship, was also brought back to Madrid, although she hasn’t tested positive for the virus. Both had been helping to treat Ebola patients at the hospital.

via Spanish priest with Ebola virus flown home for treatment | News | DW.DE | 07.08.2014.

Ebola Therapy From an Obscure Biotech Firm Is Hurried Along – NYTimes.com

{Company was not hiding, has a contract with CDC, so not obscure to CDC – anything not on a Post It note, or on your tickler list at Times is “obscure?”}

Inside special isolation units at an Atlanta hospital on Wednesday, Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, the two Americans infected with Ebola in West Africa, appeared to be responding to an experimental medicine devised by an obscure biotechnology company with ties to the Defense Department.

via Ebola Therapy From an Obscure Biotech Firm Is Hurried Along – NYTimes.com.

Did You Get The Call? | Rebelle Society

DelRita Butler

Did you get the call?

I did.

Did you hear your name

in the middle of the night?

That voice egging you on,

nudging you to awaken.

The silent alarm vibrating

through your heart,

bursting your confusion,

this nameless knowing.

This tumult

of soul seeking truths

Are there words

for this disposition?

Come out,

add to the dialog

this hiding no longer suits you.

You’re on the brink

of transformation

and you need to jump in

or defy gravity,

and float

into the collective

of indie souls.

Or, into the cast

of nameless and

unidentified

seekers of change,

your new family.

So go out.

Be the change.

By doing,

sharing,

creating.

Walk the walk

and talk the talk

in your gifted way,

your language.

Paint the story,

write the story,

sing, dance,

play the story.

Pass it on,

teach it, grow it,

word by word,

by mouth.

Be the person

you want to be.

Be the person

you need to be.

Take your hat off.

Sit down

and journal this pause.

Put on sneakers,

grab a towel,

and run this moment.

Pick up your mat,

find space,

and meditate this moment.

But however you do

what you do,

carry someone with you,

forward.

Talk to them,

touch them,

share fears,

share joys,

speak ideas.

Collectively we cannot

effect change by only watching.

We are the town criers.

via Did You Get The Call? | Rebelle Society.

Jimmy Carter: World powers should rethink approach to Hamas | Maan News Agency

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Former US president Jimmy Carter said in an op-ed Monday that in order for the Israel-Gaza status quo to change, the international community needs to recognize Hamas as a “legitimate political actor.”

“Hamas cannot be wished away, nor will it cooperate in its own demise,” an op-ed written by Carter and former Irish president Mary Robinson said.

“Only by recognizing its legitimacy as a political actor — one that represents a substantial portion of the Palestinian people — can the West begin to provide the right incentives for Hamas to lay down its weapons,” the op-ed, published in Foreign Policy, said.

“Ever since the internationally monitored 2006 elections that brought Hamas to power in Palestine, the West’s approach has manifestly contributed to the opposite result.”

Carter and Robinson called for an “partial lifting” of the eight-year-old blockade on the Gaza Strip, and said an international force should be put into place to monitor border crossings.

The presence of an international force is also necessary to hold both sides accountable for ceasefire violations, they said.

The op-ed was also heavily critical of the Israeli army’s handling of its offensive on Gaza.

“There is no humane or legal justification for the way the Israeli Defense Forces are conducting this war,” the op-ed said.

“Hundreds of Palestinian noncombatants have been killed. Much of Gaza has lost access to water and electricity completely. This is a humanitarian catastrophe.”

The op-ed also noted “unacceptable” actions by Hamas, but stressed that while Gaza militants have killed three civilians, the vast majority of the 1,875 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces throughout the assault have been civilians.

Both Carter and Robinson are members of the Elders, a non-governmental organization that describes itself as a group of “independent global leaders working together for peace and human rights.”

Carter is among the most notable American public figures to criticize Israeli policy toward Palestinians. He is the author of “Peace Not Apartheid,” a book for which he has earned praise for its frank speech about Israel and Palestine. Some key American figures, however, accuse him of being biased against Israel.

via Jimmy Carter: World powers should rethink approach to Hamas | Maan News Agency.

Middle East – Kurds unite in bid to rescue Iraq’s Yazidi minority – France 24

Pray that they succeed! Though Peace is still the answer.

Kurdish fighters from Iraq, Syria and Turkey were coordinating operations in northern Iraq Wednesday to reclaim areas lost to jihadists and rescue thousands of Yazidi civilians stranded in nearby mountains.

The fate of the civilians from the Yazidi minority, who fled to the Sinjar mountains after an attack by the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) group at the weekend, has sparked international concern.

On Tuesday a Yazidi lawmaker broke down in tears during a parliamentary session as she urged the government and the international community to save her community from being massacred or starved into extinction.

“Over the past 48 hours, 30,000 families have been besieged in the Sinjar mountains, with no water and no food,” said Vian Dakhil.

via Middle East – Kurds unite in bid to rescue Iraq’s Yazidi minority – France 24.

AKA: We’ll do it when no one is watching! Government drops enough hint to allow confined field trials of GM crops – The Times of India

A day after allaying members’ concerns over genetically modified crops in Parliament, the government on Wednesday dropped enough hint that it may eventually give its nod for ‘confined’ field trials of certain varieties of GM crops including rice, brinjal, chickpea, mustard and cotton.

“We are not saying no to science. Nobody can say no to science. We have to take proper caution. We have to take proper action. But you cannot deny, we are not living in the Galileo times,” said environment minister Prakash Javadekar on sidelines of a function here.

via Government drops enough hint to allow confined field trials of GM crops – The Times of India.